"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Saturday, December 02, 2017

Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up! And That's Kushner-In-Law We're Talking About

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Chris Christie has no position in his crony Trump's regime because just over a decade ago he put Charles Kushner, another Trump crony, in prison. Trump's now in-law was sentenced to two years in the pen-- though he only served served 14 months-- at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery in Alabama (a minimum-security Club Fed on the grounds of the Maxwell Air Force Base). Charles was released from prison on August 25, 2006 and was the first big donor to Trump's presidential campaign. Other notables who have spent time there include former Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell, Enron ex-CEO Jeff Skilling, former Louisiana Congressman Richard Tonry, former Chicago Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., former Louisiana insurance commissioner Sherman Bernard, former Federal Judge Robert Collins, IndyCar driver John Paul, Jr., Nixon Special Counsel Charles Colson, and football player Reche Caldwell. Will their next celebrity guest be Charles Kushner's son-- and Trumpanzee son-in-law-- Jared Kushner?

Kushner-in-law was the intermediary between Trump and Michael Flynn-- yes, that same Michael Flynn who was Trump's top security advisor-- who pled guilty to a wrist slap charge in return for cooperation in the ongoing Putin-Gate investigation. Eli Lake reported that Kushner will be the next domino to fall. Lake reported wrote that though the development "is alarming news for Donald Trump... the first person it's likely to jeopardize will be the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner."

Two former officials with the Trump transition team who worked closely with Flynn say that during the last days of the Obama administration, the retired general was instructed to contact foreign ambassadors and foreign ministers of countries on the U.N. Security Council, ahead of a vote condemning Israeli settlements. Flynn was told to try to get them to delay that vote until after Barack Obama had left office, or oppose the resolution altogether.That is relevant now because one of Flynn’s lies to the FBI was when he said that he never asked Russia's ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, to delay the vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. The indictment released today from the office of special prosecutor Robert Mueller describes this lie: "On or about December 22, 2016, Flynn did not ask the Russian Ambassador to delay the vote on or defeat a pending United Nations Security Council resolution."At the time, the U.N. Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements was a big deal. Even though the Obama administration had less than a month left in office, the president instructed his ambassador to the United Nations to abstain from a resolution, breaking a precedent that went back to 1980 when it came to one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.This was the context of Kushner's instruction to Flynn last December. One transition official at the time said Kushner called Flynn to tell him he needed to get every foreign minister or ambassador from a country on the U.N. Security Council to delay or vote against the resolution. Much of this appeared to be coordinated also with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose envoys shared their own intelligence about the Obama administration's lobbying efforts to get member stats to support the resolution with the Trump transition team.For now it's unclear what to make of all of this. Lying to the FBI is a felony and always a serious matter. We also know from Flynn's "statement of the offense" that he lied to FBI agents as the bureau was investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any links between Russia and the Trump campaign in this period. Nonetheless, nothing in the Flynn plea sheds any light on whether the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia to influence the election.ABC News reported Friday that Flynn is prepared to tell Mueller's team that Trump had instructed him to make contact with Russia during the campaign itself. If those contacts involved the emails the U.S. intelligence community charges Russia stole from leading Democrats, then Mueller will have uncovered evidence of actual collusion between the president and a foreign adversary during the election. Impeachment could then be in the cards.

Business Insiderreported yesterday that William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general who spent 26 years at the Justice Department, told them that this spells big trouble for others in the Trump Regime and that "This development thoroughly undermines Trump's unrealistic predictions that the investigation will end soon ... It appears likely that many more shoes will drop before Mueller is done. And it is particularly ominous for others that Flynn appears to have gotten a generous deal and appears still to be cooperating." All of this, of course, comes just hours after widespread reports that Trump had been aggressively pressuring Senate Republicans-- including Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC) as well as Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY)-- to shut down the Putin-Gate investigations, a clear case of obstruction of justice. And on the House side, no one doubts that Trump did persuade Intelligence chair Devin Nunes to undermine his own committee's investigation. I suspect that Nunes is going to wind up in a cell next to Kushner over this mess.

6 Comments:

Trump is being backed into a corner, making it much more likely that he will do something very drastic. If I was Kim Jong Un, I'd make certain that I could back my previous threats at least once, and telling the world that Trump left you no choice. You'd still be glowing ashes, but the world does tend to believe the headline long before any truth is determined.

But even if Trump doesn't act as drastically as I feel he will, there isn't anything left of the USA democracy now that the Oligarchy got everything it wanted for Xmas (happy holidays, assholes!). We the People now have no power since we are now up against all those militarized police who will gladly defend our oppressors for the privilege of killing and maiming with impunity. Add in the Nazi militias, and a Balkans-style civil war will destroy what remains.

My only regret is that my grandkids won't enjoy the same nation I grew up in.

I want to add some perspective on Jared Kusher. No, I don't think that this is what will bring Kusher down. But it has to so with the part about the UN Security vote in the article Howie quoted. It shows Kushner's more than likely motivation re: the UN resolution.

A while back I wrote some posts for DWT. Part III had to do with an investigation by the Dutch documentary company, ZEMBLA. The second ZEMBLA video focused on Lev Leviev. The whole video is worth watching, if you are interested in human rights.

But, re: the UN vote, I remembered this part. Here is the link to the second ZEMBLA video.

ZEMBLA - The dubious friends of Donald trump: King of Diamondshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvd7PqI_Lx0

Just highlight the link, and click to open. Then move your cursor to start at minute 31, and watch from there. It's quire revealing about Kushner, and his allegiance to a hard line group that supports West Bank settlements- Chabad.

~The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests are attracting growing interest from the justice department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, as he seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to distort the outcome of the 2016 race. Mueller has reportedly expanded his inquiry to look at real estate deals involving the Trump Organization, as well as Kushner’s financing.~

Who knows if Jared Kushner will flip like Flynn, to save himself, or if he will go down with the ship. But, it seems obvious to me that Jared is Mueller's next target.

And, as a concluding note, I remember reading a comment in a NYT article (I think), where someone said as best I can remember~ "Mueller is conducting a Gambino style rollup". Heh. I think I'm beginning to get what this means.

When it comes to telling the truth I'll pick Julian Assange and wikileaks over anything said by the "intelligence agencies" and Assange says the cables were leaked not hacked. He also said no govt. gave them to wikileaks and that group with highly respected tech experts (including whistle blower William Binney), the VIPS also produced a report saying, paraphrasing here, you couldn't steal that much that quickly from Russia it would. not. work.Drop the Rachel (Joe McCarthy was a Piker)Maddow Show imitation because if you remove the unproven allegation from the highlighted paragraph there is no there there."If those contacts involved the emails the U.S. intelligence community charges Russia stole from leading Democrats".Whenever one sees the term "the U.S. intelligence community charges" I think some treat it like the last word is the legal term of being 'charged',replace it with "says" and take it with more than the proverbial 'grain of salt', try a whole 'salt mine' but maybe not the one where one of our wonderful honest never war mongering intelligence agencies kept a man chained to a wall until he froze to death. But hey just another of many many 'Black Site' occurrences... that we know of,of which there is PROOF.

In NONE of all this do I hear from sites that are supposed to be 'progressive' (whatever that means today, I grew up with Liberal) calling for the Govt. agencies, including Meuller to take a deposition (via link) from Assange, the person in charge of the place that leaked the cables to the Public. It is suspicious he has not been officially heard from, I mean without wikileaks where is anything in this story? It.would.not.exist.

More for your highlighted paragraph in which this was stressed."make contact with Russia during the campaign itself"

ABC News Retracts Flynn Bombshell Story

"....During the frenzy yesterday over the Flynn plea deal, ABC dropped a bombshell report that Michael Flynn told Special Counsel Bob Mueller that he was prepared to testify that it was Trump who told him to contact the Russians. ABC News later not only retracted that statement but corrected it with information supporting Trump’s account and contacts with Russians."

"Here is the ABC “clarification”:

During a live Special Report, ABC News reported that a confidant of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said Flynn was prepared to testify that then-candidate Donald Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials during the campaign.

That source later clarified that during the campaign, Trump assigned Flynn and a small circle of other senior advisers to find ways to repair relations with Russia and other hot spots.

It was shortly after the election, that President-elect Trump directed Flynn to contact Russian officials on topics that included working jointly against ISIS.

As I mentioned in my column yesterday, the meetings described in the Flynn plea were notably directed at pressing foreign conflicts and United Nations votes. Trump had an interest in repairing relations with Russia and striking a new path in foreign policy. He stated that on the campaign trail. The ABC report and Flynn account seems to support that account as the motivation of the meetings to address issues including ISIS, Israel, and sanctions against Russia.

Such accounts can raise issues relation to the the Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) barring unauthorized citizens who negotiate with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. However, the interpretation of that Act as it relates to the incoming National Security Adviser is uncertain. More importantly the Act is widely and correctly viewed as unconstitutional and should be eliminated by Congress."

Ronnie, it is illegal for a party who is NOT seated as US government to ACT as the state department. Whether it was "candidate" or "prez elect" drumpfsterfire, his people were not sworn in (not that anyone adheres to that oath) to act as the US state department.